Let's Fix EU Copyright!

FixCopyright.eu answering tool is now closed! You can still fill in the full questionnaire on the site of the European Commission until 15 June 2016. Thanks for helping us #FixCopyright!

What's at stake?

The consultation looks mainly at two issues: (or watch the 2 videos below if you don't feel like reading)

The 1st part tackles “the role of publishers in the copyright value chain”. In plain English this refers to the so-called neighbouring rights, and more specifically the notion of ‘ancillary copyright’.

The 2nd part tries to collect input on the ‘panorama exception’, or as the EC puts it the “use of works, such as works of architecture or sculpture, made to be located permanently in public places”. In plain English, it’s all about the use of images of public space in a personal or commercial context.

Regardless of the parts that interest you most, we encourage you to answer both parts of the questionnaire. You can still choose not to answer to all questions that display below and just pick and choose one, or answer all of them but copy-paste the same justification for all.

This is a one-time opportunity to (1) nip in the bud the idea of ‘ancillary copyright’ for publishers and state clearly that linking should not fall under copyright and (2) end the fact that copyright applies to images or drawings of buildings or monuments that are part of our panorama.

'Role of publishers': In plain English this refers to the so-called neighbouring rights, and more specifically the notion of ‘ancillary copyright’. This does two things: it creates a new privilege for publishers, which will apply to anything published in writing on the internet; and it “institutes a copyright fee to be paid by online news aggregators (such as Google News) to publishers for linking their content within their aggregation services”, which has been introduced in Germany and Spain, but rejected in countries such as France and Austria.

'Panorama exception': In plain English, it’s all about the use of images of public space in a personal or commercial context. To clarify the latter, you need to see ‘commercial’ as a broad concept, when you think of the fact that Wikimedia is considered a commercial outlet. A recent ruling by the Swedish Supreme Court against Wikimedia Sweden illustrates its struggle with copyright legislation and freedom of panorama.